"We're going to have different people coming in," Trump replied, "because we have our people."

Trump also revealed in the interview that he will only receive one intelligence briefing a week, because he considers himself "a smart person."

"I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years," Trump said.

"Could be eight years — but eight years. I don't need that."

A secret CIA assessment revealed last week that Russian hackers breached the American campaign to help Trump defeat Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

One of Trump's top State Department picks, John Bolton, argued, without evidence, that the Russians were a so-called "false flag" and suggested the Obama administration perpetuated Russia's role in the hacks.

"It is not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation," Bolton told Fox News anchor Eric Shawn.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) joined a bipartisan group of senators in a statement calling for a fight against foreign hacks. (Nathaniel Brooks/AP)

"I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree," he added, attempting to justify Trump's refusal to take security briefings.

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Bolton on Monday clarified his "false flag" remarks and said China, Iran or North Korea may have been behind the hacks.

Stolen emails from Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, flooded Wikileaks in the final months of the race.

Trump has consistently praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and in July he urged Russian sleuths to find the 33,000 emails Clinton deleted from her tenure as secretary of state. After an uproar, Trump said his request was "sarcastic." He has denied months of speculation that Russia was behind the hack.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has denied that the leak came from the Russian government. The CIA investigation did not definitively conclude if the Kremlin directed the hackers.

A former American ambassador to Russia said Sunday he believed Putin favored Trump, in part, to get revenge on Clinton for suggesting Russia's own tense election in 2011 were rigged.

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"It's very rational in my view that (Putin) would rather see President-elect Trump be the next president of the United States instead of Secretary Clinton," Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador from 2012 to 2014, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Trump refused to take the CIA assessment seriously from the beginning. His transition team said in a statement, "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'"

The claim about the scale of Trump's Electoral College victory is not true.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus doubled the doubts on Sunday, attempting to minimize any impact the leak had on the election. He also denied reports that Russians also breached the RNC, but withheld its findings.

"You don't have any proof that the outcome of the election was changed," Priebus, who Trump has chosen to be his White House chief of staff, said on "Meet the Press."

"Forget about who did the hacking...It's America first. I don't want the DNC hacked. I don't want anybody hacked. But I don't know who did the hacking," he said.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators — including Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) — issued a statement Sunday vowing to collaborate on combating foreign cyberattacks.

Donald Trump has spoken fondly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and is now refusing to take seriously a CIA report saying Russian hackers breached the campaign. (Alexei Druzhinin/AP)

"Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber-attacks," the statement said.

"This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country."

The statement added that the reports of Russian wrongdoing "should alarm every American."